The Truth About Protein Absorption: How Often You Should Eat Protein to Build Muscle

The Truth About Protein Absorption: How Often You Should Eat Protein to Build Muscle, Many people claim that the body can only absorb certain amounts of protein per meal. Some say more and some say less. Who’s right?

The Science of Protein Absorption

When you eat protein, your stomach uses its acid and enzymes to break it down into its building blocks, amino acids.

These molecules are transported into the bloodstream by special cells that line the small intestine, and are then delivered to various parts of the body.

Your small intestine only has so many transporter cells, which limits the amount of amino acids that can be infused into your blood every hour.

This is really what we’re talking about with “protein absorption”:

How quickly our small intestine can absorb amino acids into our blood.

And this happens at different speeds for different types of protein.

According to one review, whey clocks in at 8 to 10 grams absorbed per hour, casein at ~6.1 g/hr, soy at ~3.9 g/hr, and cooked egg at ~2.9 g/hr.

These numbers aren’t completely accurate due to the complexities involved in measuring protein absorption, but they lend insight nonetheless.

Certain proteins are absorbed very slowly and others are processed fairly quickly.

Certain proteins are absorbed very slowly and others are processed fairly quickly.

You should also know that food substances don’t move uniformly through the digestive tract and they don’t necessarily leave sections in the same order that they arrived in.

For instance, the presence of protein in the stomach stimulates the production of a hormone that delays “gastric emptying” (the emptying of the food from the stomach).

This slows down intestinal contractions and thus how quickly the food moves through the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed.

This is one of the ways your body “buys the time” it needs to absorb the protein you eat.

Carbohydrates and fats can move through your small intestine and be fully absorbed while the protein is still being worked on.

Once the amino acids arrive in the blood, your body does various things with them including tissue growth and repair.

It can even temporarily store excess amino acids in muscle for near-future needs.

If there are still amino acids in the blood after doing all of the above, your body can convert them into glucose to fuel your brain and other cells.

So, that’s how your body processes the protein you eat.